A letter to John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, about his insistence on maintaining in office the Governor General, Peter Hollingsworth, whom a church enquiry has found guilty of having helped to suppress public knowledge of the physical abuse of children by Anglican priests, while he was Bishop of Brisbane, and to have maintained the abusers in their jobs in the church.
Mr. Howard
The ABC reports, today, May 8, 2003:
"I've already said that there is nothing in his conduct as Governor-General that would warrant or support a recommendation from me to the Queen that his appointment be terminated," Mr Howard said.
Of course, your position is lamentable, but I wonder if you will stand by it, even as appropriate horror mounts at having, as the Australian head of state, a revealed catalyst of institutionalized, systematic child abuse (whose sexual-abuse component is, of course, only one part of the picture of church physical abuse of children)?
Are you prepared, now, to declare that you will not alter this response to suit political expediency? That is to say, Do you insist on your position, even in the face of broad condemnation of those who abet the carnal abuse of children? And will you undertake, now, to leave office yourself, once your support of Hollingsworth and all his ilk comes to be seen more and more clearly as equivalent to their own gross moral failure?
Of course, you will not. You have no moral position, apparently, nor ability to form one, nor to see how grievous the actions of people like Hollingsworth have been. Your posturing and illogicality seem in keeping with their cowardice, deceit, hypocrisy, and complicity.
Mr. Howard
The ABC reports, today, May 8, 2003:
"I've already said that there is nothing in his conduct as Governor-General that would warrant or support a recommendation from me to the Queen that his appointment be terminated," Mr Howard said.
Of course, your position is lamentable, but I wonder if you will stand by it, even as appropriate horror mounts at having, as the Australian head of state, a revealed catalyst of institutionalized, systematic child abuse (whose sexual-abuse component is, of course, only one part of the picture of church physical abuse of children)?
Are you prepared, now, to declare that you will not alter this response to suit political expediency? That is to say, Do you insist on your position, even in the face of broad condemnation of those who abet the carnal abuse of children? And will you undertake, now, to leave office yourself, once your support of Hollingsworth and all his ilk comes to be seen more and more clearly as equivalent to their own gross moral failure?
Of course, you will not. You have no moral position, apparently, nor ability to form one, nor to see how grievous the actions of people like Hollingsworth have been. Your posturing and illogicality seem in keeping with their cowardice, deceit, hypocrisy, and complicity.
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